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Monday, December 29, 2014

Lizard Squad: X-mas Scrooge or Savior?

Well, hello there! Nice to see you again! I hope you had a very merry Christmas and got all the games that you asked for. I had no time to work on more ideas for the blog, or to catch up on any gaming. I want to complain, but I had a great time with family, binge watching House of Cards/Homeland...I was planning on coming back here with some sort of announcement about the future of TDDWS, but I have a ton more research that I have to do, before I can say anything.

Anyways...while I was watching the action unfold on Netflix, I was completely unaware that the real drama was taking place on twitter between 3 hacker groups and internet freedom of speech crusader, Kim Dotcom. The fall out came in the form of a digital Scrooge to take away Christmas cheer for millions of PSN and Xbox live users. Much like "David and Goliath", the infamous Lizard Squad hurled a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS) at the corporate giants in order to cripple their online gaming services, and succeeded in taking them down.

Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility for previous DDoS attacks against Destiny (that was a fun one), League of Legends and Machinima, not only for the lulz...but also, a higher purpose. Would, or should you trust a multi-billion dollar company with your credit card information if they can't withstand these attacks? I can tell you how much fun it was to receive an email from Sony stating that my information had been stolen from them...it sucks. Collectively we pay millions of dollars monthly for online subscriptions to these services, yet even after all these previous hacks, nothing has changed?

This time, the digital white flag didn't rise until Mr. Dotcom offered the holiday hackers over $300,000 worth of vouchers for Megaupload. His reasoning seems to be more about saving face for hackers across the globe, than to save Christmas. And I see his point. How likely are we to hear that the net needs more regulation and big brother needs more tools to help keep an eye on internet "terrorist attacks" like this? With the addition of North Korea cyber attacks, Lizard Squad could easily be playing into their hand.

I can see the major lulz in causing a global temper tantrum/headache for toddlers and parents around the globe. I can also see Lizard Squads higher purpose of pointing out flaws in security for these corporations...but Mr. Dotcom makes a excellent point. Are actions such as this just playing into a narrative for more online regulation? Already news outlets such as the BBC are claiming that we are all the "victims" of Lizard Squad's digital "terrorism"...they ruined Christmas for Christ Sake! This hyperbole is only going to get worse if these attacks continue.

Sure enough, these attacks will continue though. Lizard Squad's Christmas "gift" was a smash hit for the group, why would they stop here? They gained more notoriety, they successfully took down both Microsoft/Sony and received a huge payout by Mega. I say get the popcorn ready, there's only more to come. And if it isn't Lizard Squad, other hackers will rise to take there place. People like to say that they don't like drama, but if our tastes in media are any barometer we should be claiming the exact opposite. One of the best things about this for me has been discovering #dramaalert, a great show by FaZe Keemstar. Check out his interview here with Kim Dotcom, Anonymous, Lizard and Finest Squad here.